OTTAWA (Staff) – Alberta premier Ralph Klein travelled east last week with a message for national politicians: don’t be afraid to make drastic cuts in government spending.
The results will be worth it.
The people will support it.
Life will go on, and perhaps get better.
“We are on a steady climb in popularity with the toughest fiscal program in the country because we finally caught up with the public’s agenda,” Klein told the Ottawa Rotary Club Sept. 20.
“It means that the people in Alberta, and I suspect the people in Canada, are smarter and tougher and more resilient than we give them credit for.”
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He later took that message directly to prime minister Jean ChrŽtien, who is promising a radical spending cut program of his own.
Klein said that to be successful in cutting spending, governments must move quickly, target the big-spending areas like health, education and social services, provide voters with as much information as possible, be honest in describing the short-term pain associated with cuts and keep it simple.
While he did not insist the Alberta approach would work everywhere, he did counsel political courage to deal with public debt.
Klein said Alberta’s provincial civil service has declined from 36,000 to 28,000 positions through the deficit-cutting stategy, and the program is ahead of schedule without tax increases.
Spending has been cut by $2.5 billion and Albertans have been promised “no tax increases, no new taxes and no sales tax, now or ever.”
He said results have been dramatic.
After withdrawing government presence, the economy is booming, consumer spending and business profits and employment are up and “farm income is up an incredible 155 percent.”
